A glimpse into the classroom of the future can be seen when students and professors from different disciplines collaborate at the Fisher Gallery at 3 p.m. Tuesday, April 11.

There, seven graduate students in creative writing from USC College and seven graduate students in music composition from the USC Thornton School of Music will have their highly original works, created just weeks ago, interpreted by graduate vocal music students.

The MuCO 548 class is Writer and Composer, and it is the second time it has been taught by Frank Ticheli, professor of composition, and David St. John, poet and professor of English. The singers are vocal music students of Lisa Sylvester, adjunct assistant professor of vocal arts.

The premise is simple. Each writer is teamed with a composer. The writers write poems and the composers set them to music. The results, however, are complex: evocative, multilayered works with great care lavished on each word, each space, each choice of meter and pitch.

After hearing five of the compositions, St. John said of the collaborative effort: “It’s dazzling. The level of discussion and the proficiency level is so high. It’s heartening to see young artists this consistently serious at work and working with such passion.”

At a class session in mid-February, freshly minted poems were read by their authors, and their partners mulled over the musical possibilities.

One poem by Eric Rawson titled “After the first love the last love” drew admiring, respectful comments from the composers. They discussed words in the various poems carefully, noting “the lyricism in the soft vowels” and wondering whether there needs to be cohesion between every line in the music and text.

“You have to dig into the poem and distill the essence of a scene,” Ticheli told the students.

“The challenge for me is to figure out the tone,” said composer Ben Phelps. “I don’t want to diminish the poem by making it seem too silly.”

He was referring to the poem “Recently Living Rabbits” by Jillian Burcar, that begins this way: “My mother slaughters rabbits. My mother breaks their necks and spines, feels life slip between fingertips. She played piano when she was young. Such sturdy fingers.”

A month later, his composition finished, it was sung in class with force and feeling by Rochelle Martin. It had humor and gravity and seemed polished enough to belong on the stage. And so it was for all of the compositions in class that day.

The class involves three separate assignments for writer/composer pairs. The performance at the Fisher Gallery will be of the second project, medium-length narrative poems. Seven works will debut, with all 21 artists (writers, composers, singers) in attendance. Each piece will be introduced by the poet and composer.